


Trüffel

by traumschwinge



Series: Chocolatier AU [9]
Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Chocolate, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Multi, Polygamy, Prototyping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 03:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6267433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traumschwinge/pseuds/traumschwinge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some days, a job that requires creativity and passion means having to make sacrifices. Like sacrificing a lazy saturday in favor of having the entire apartment filled with the smell of fruit and chocolate. Logan has gotten used to it and is quick to pretend the kitchen doesn't even exist, but to Charles it's still new and who knows, if he spends enough time around the kitchen, he might get a piece of chocolate before everything's ready...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trüffel

Charles woke, disoriented and craving a small, orange fruit he didn’t even know the name of. And chocolate. He put an hand on his pillow to push himself up, only to touch a small wet patch of drool. He groaned. Apparently, he’d fantasized more in his sleep than he’d thought. On second thought, he should probably rub not just his eyes but also the edges of his mouth.

Blinking a couple of times, he took the room in. Logan was still sleeping next to him, but Erik’s side of the bed was empty and cooling quickly. Charles yawned. He reached out for Erik’s mind, but Erik was too distracted to even register him. His mind was much too busy going over all the shops he knew opened at seven or sooner on a saturday, including markets and wholesale. Charles frowned, a little confused.

The shower turned off, just a moment before Erik stepped out of the bathroom, still dripping wet but with a towel in his hand, rubbing himself dry while he walked over to the dresser for fresh clothes. Charles stared unabashed. The drop running down the curve of Erik’s back made him wonder if he could pull Erik right back into bed. Probably not from the way his thoughts were on a single track right now.

Logan rolled over, opening an eye and groaned, “If you have to wake up at unholy hours, can you at least not ruin the floor? Towel off in the bathroom.” Erik ignored him, so Logan slung an arm around Charles waist, murmuring something of staying in bed a little longer.

Charles kept watching Erik getting dressed, just because it really was quite a show and one he still didn’t want to miss any time. Much too soon, Erik was dressed in an old jeans and worn shirt, clothes that would usually mean a lazy day off. He raised the towel to ruffle his hair dry enough to go out with and turned to Charles, “Can I bring you something for breakfast?”

Charles blinked, a little too tired still. His stomach, however, growled a little. Logan matched the noise. “You could swing by the bakery on your way home, yes.”

Erik nodded, throwing the towel back into the bathroom without caring where it landed and then he was gone. Charles could hear the apartment door less than a minute later.

”What was that about?” Charles asked as he sunk back onto the cushion. Logan immediately made himself comfortable on his chest.

It took a moment until Logan answered. Charles suspected he might have almost fallen asleep listening to his heartbeat, before Logan spoke. “Sudden strike of inspiration. Happens sometimes. He’ll probably get mad if you told him but sometimes Erik’s quite the artist.” Logan’s morning stubble scratched over Charles skin with every syllable. “When it comes to chocolate that is.”

Charles put a hand on Logan’s head and lazily started to pet him there. “Does it always happen early on weekends?” he yawned. “Not that I mind watching him walk around naked and wet. But getting dressed this fast was disappointing.” He let out a pleased sigh as Logan got the hint and slipped his hand under the blanket.

”Sometimes it happens in the middle of the night,” Logan murmured, his voice almost a purr. His hand had found the waistband of Charles’ shorts. “Or while we eat together. Once, he’d even had the all important idea during foreplay.” He let out a short huff. “It happens. You’ll have to live with it.”

”Mmmmh,” Charles hummed and stretched, trying to wriggle free of his shorts. “Good to know there’s some leniency in this household for sudden strikes of inspiration. I’ll remind you the next time I’m working on something important.”

”Oh, great,” Logan groaned. “Another one.” He leaned up and whatever Charles had meant to say got drowned in a deep kiss. Charles slung his arms around Logan’s neck, holding onto him for the time of the kiss.

They whiled the time until Erik’s return away by trading lazy handjobs and then very slowly shuffled into the bathroom for a long shower together. They heard Erik opening the door and tapping straight to the kitchen when they were getting dressed.

Logan was smirking broadly when he inspected the bag of fresh buns and the second one filled with three pieces of sweet baked goods. “Just in time for breakfast, wonderful,” he said.

Erik huffed. “You two were too lazy to even turn on the coffee maker,” he said, handing Charles a stack of plates. The coffee maker gurgled in turn with kettle bubbling merrily, both promising hot beverages soon.

”How could we know when you’d be back?” Logan stretched, his joints popping audibly. “So we figured we’d rather stay in bed.”

Erik shot him a look that clearly indicated that he didn’t have to be a telepath to know what they had been doing without him. “Excuses,” he deadpanned.

They had set the table by then and sat down for breakfast. Erik ate rather quickly, his thoughts already back at the ideas he’d had for new chocolate and truffles. Charles didn’t even try to strike up a conversation with him, just like Logan. It was probably not nice, but it was far easier to leave him be and talk children and students and university students behaving like children. The moment he’d eaten a bun with jam and finished his coffee, Erik got up anyway, getting blocks of chocolate, cacao powder, his new acquirements and a couple of knives and bowls ready on the counter. Logan and Charles watched him like he was the current entertainment program.

”You ran out on us for bananas?” Logan groaned as Erik put the fruit on the counter. The moment before, he had been contemplating another sunflower seed bun which he now stabbed with his knife so he could cut it in half.

”Of course not.” Even though he had his back turned, it was obvious Erik was rolling his eyes. “I just need a complimenting base for the right consistency and don’t know what I like yet.” After the bananas he also unpacked a couple of kiwis and a mango from the tote bag he used for shopping. The telling clang of glass hitting glass could be heard.

Charles squinted as Erik took the bottles out. “Is that juice and… Schnapps?”

” _Obstbrand_ ,” Logan and Erik corrected almost simultaneously. “Something like kirsch,” Logan added for explanation. To Erik, he said, “Any particular reason that juice is this obnoxiously orange?”

Instead of answering, Erik filled two shot glasses with the juice and put one in front of Logan and Charles each. Charles sniffed cautiously. It didn’t smell like anything he’d had before. Logan was less careful, he drank the thick liquid in one gulp.

He immediately started to cough. “Fuck, that’s bitter!”

Erik smirked. “I could have warned you.” His smirk even widened as he watched Charles stir a generous spoonful of honey into the juice before taking a sip.

”Sour and slightly bitter but kind of pleasant,” Charles commented. He ignored Logan’s glower at the honey. “What is it?”

” _Sanddorn_ ,” Erik replied, going back to his preparations. “Dunno the English word, google it.”

Charles pulled his phone closer and opened Wikipedia. It had proven a far better resource for food and other culture laden things than a dictionary. When he’d pulled up the right page and switched to [English](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippophae_rhamnoides), though, he only frowned, a little at a loss.

Logan leaned across the table to look at the screen. “It’s cough medicine, that’s what it is,” he grumbled as Charles scrolled over the pictures down to the use.

”According to you, malt sugar is, too,” Erik huffed. He’d started chopping up the bananas. “I like the taste. Wonder what it’s like in chocolate, though. What do you think, dark chocolate?”

Logan grinned. “Malt sugar is a waste of a perfectly good resource.” Upon consideration, he nodded. “Go with the darkest you got if you have to.”

They finished breakfast eventually while Erik continued to prepare whatever it was he wanted to try. Charles watched him puree the fruit and cut up the chocolate for melting. In a pot, he cooked the bananas and kiwi with some of the juice, stirring and tasting it every once in a while. When it was to his satisfaction, he added cream. Ignoring Logan’s earlier advice, he portioned the fruit and cream in three small bowls, melting different kinds of chocolate in it. When he had put the bowls in the fridge, he repeated the procedure with the mango and some more juice.

The entire kitchen smelled of fruit, making Charles thankful he’d just eaten. It was bad enough knowing Erik wouldn’t let him try anything until it was finished which usually meant hours because every single step demanded the last step to cool down in the fridge for at least an hour. On an empty stomach, he wasn’t sure how he’d be able to handle it.

He always found it calming to listen in on Erik’s thoughts while he was watching him cook. Erik was so lost in what he was doing, the probably closest thing Charles ever experienced to seeing a person totally at peace and free of wishes and demands. It made him always wonder if that was what monks strived for when they meditated.

Charles moved his laptop over to the kitchen to work there. He sometimes looked up to watch the muscles in Erik’s arms and shoulders move while he was quickly cutting some more chocolate from blocks to tiny shreds. They were clearly visible through the shirt. When he thought about how it would look if Erik was cooking without a shirt he shared the thoughts with Logan, mostly to distract them both from what they were doing. Both of them appreciated the mental images of the other very much.

_What do you think how angry would he get if we asked him to take off that shirt for our viewing pleasure?_ Charles had finished answering his emails and doing some small administrative work he hadn’t come around to doing the day before. He contemplated shutting down his laptop for the time being. It was much more fun to look at Erik anyway. Or he could do something productive, like clearing the table and going grocery shopping in Erik’s stead.

The high pitched whirr of the vacuum came from the living room. _Very very angry for distracting him and proposing something so unsave,_ Logan projected back. He added a memory of him asking a somewhat younger Erik to cook naked. It hadn’t gone well.

Charles sighed out loud. _What a shame._ He got up to do what he’d been thinking of, taking a few curious glances to find out what Erik was doing. He had a couple of chocolate bar tins out on the counter and was filling chocolate of different cocoa content into them before putting the second half of the tin on. From what Charles could tell it was the last he had to do before he’d have to wait for everything to cool down in the fridge.

Erik frowned, a little irritated when Charles started to put the things from their breakfast away. “Stop that, I’ll do it myself later,” he grumbled. From the fridge, he snatched the shopping list and held it out to Charles. “There, if you have to do anything go get groceries.”

Charles took the list with a shrug. Just to irritate Erik a little more, he pressed a kiss to his cheek. “See you in a bit then.” He took the tote bag. On the way out, he stopped for a moment to kiss Logan as well, dodging the vacuum to get to him.

By the time Charles returned from the supermarket around the corner, Logan had finished cleaning and was in the kitchen bugging Erik while he cleared the table. They both helped Charles with the unloading of groceries when he put down the bag, letting Charles recover from carrying a six pack of 1,5l bottles of water all the way from the supermarket and up the stairs.

When everything was stored away, Logan put an arm around Erik’s shoulder to purr into his ear, the noise all too gentle not to be a warning. “How long does everything have to cool still?”

Knowing when he was defeated, Erik sighed. “Another two or three hours,” he admitted. “Why?”

Logan grinned. “Weeeeell. I thought, if you have the energy to be up way too early to make chocolates like a madman, we could just as well hit the gym. Been a while since we went together.”

”Yeah, yeah, fine, whatever.” Erik rolled his eyes. “I have to do something while waiting anyway.”

Logan turned to Charles, looking far too expectant for Charles’ liking. “Charles?”

”Yeah, no.” Charles shook his head almost laughing. “I had enough of a workout for one day.” He gave the six pack a light kick, making the plastic rub together with a horrible squeaking noise. “And no amount of naked, sweaty skin can convince me otherwise.”

That at least made Logan laugh. “You know you could use the workout with how tired you’re from just that itty-bitty lifting and…” He looked pointedly at Erik and then the freezer, before he shrugged. “You’ll get fat if you let Erik feed you as much chocolate as he wants.”

Charles pouted, mostly for show. “I know perfectly well how much sweets I can handle, thank you very much.”

From the way Logan’s mouth and right hand twitched it was obvious he had meant to say something about weight gain around Charles’ middle, but he was interrupted by a light shove to his shoulder from Erik. “If you’re not coming, I’m going alone,” he declared, as he marched to the bedroom to grab their bags.

While Erik and Logan were at the gym, knocking each other around a boxing ring or stretching or whatever it was they were doing when they went together, Charles passed the time alone at home comfortably on the couch, reading. The semester was about to start back up again in less than a month and he had meant to change one of his seminars around a bit, unwilling to teach exactly the same seminar the second year in a row. The other thing on his mind while he was browsing the university library’s site and google scholar was that he’d somehow let a colleague from the social studies rope him into a joint module which demanded he did another seminar and a couple of lectures on ethics, genetics and mutation. It was giving him a headache and he’d not even gotten started seriously yet.

He’d started working on a draft for the first of his lectures, trying to explain with words and examples why he as a geneticist still thought extremely narrow laws were the way to go and why he believed that only having informed, consenting, adult test subjects was the only ethical way to go when it came to research into the x-genome and that laws ensuring that were not an obstruction but a necessity. He also pulled some example from other countries that had gone another way, especially the US, but he hadn’t gotten very far by the time Logan and Erik returned. Charles rubbed his temples as he looked up from his laptop, wrapping his telepathy around his boyfriends’ minds to tap in on their contentedness.

”I take it it was nice at the gym?” he asked. Logan plopped down next to him on the couch so Charles decided to call it a day with the lecture, closing his laptop and putting it aside so Logan could claim his lap. His hair still felt moist as Charles ran his fingers through it.

Logan made a pleased, rumbling sound deep in his chest. “Very.” He stretched a little, leaning into Charles’ hand. “Should’ve come with us.”

Charles smiled softly. “Next time, maybe.”

”You always say that,” Logan laughed.

”Because it’s true. There is a chance I’ll come.” Charles started to scratch Logan’s sideburns. “But it’s not a big chance.”

In the bathroom, the washing machine rumbled to life.

Erik didn’t show his face in the living room for almost an hour, too busy filling the entire apartment with the smell of chocolate and the juice he was working with. It was mouthwatering, in Charles’ opinion and probably torture that Erik had to do it at home instead of at the café.

It took almost another hour before Erik was done in the kitchen. The clattering of cookware and running water had been telling signs of him finishing up for a while before that. He looked a little tired when he all but collapsed into the armchair, but his mind was a warm, pleased fog, all of the drive he’d had all day now worked out in the kitchen and gym. Charles wanted to ask him to come over and cuddle up with them. He knew Erik needed some space for the moment, though, so he didn’t.

”You can try the chocolate in about an hour,” Erik said after a while, his half-closed eyes fixed somewhere above and to the left of the tv. He was smiling.

Charles didn’t even try to hide the delighted noise escaping his chest. “I’ve been waiting to hear that all day,” he sighed. His hands were still tangled in Logan’s hair. He could have fallen asleep like that if not for the prospect of chocolate soon. “What did you make? Truffles?”

Erik nodded. He looked like he was about to doze off for a while. “That and filled chocolate tabl… Er. Bars.” His eyes slipped closed. “I wanted to fill some pralinés with syrup or a little alcohol, too, but I figured if I knew what chocolate to use, they’d be the least of my problems. So.” He shrugged.

”Mmmmmh,” Charles hummed, his hand moving down Logan’s neck to knead at his shoulder. “Truffles are still my favorite.”

That made both Logan and Erik laugh a little. “I know,” Erik smirked. “All your fault I’m making so many new flavours of them lately.”

”Lies,” Charles chided. “You just want to bribe me to help you with a birthday present for Emma. Not gonna work but I take the bribes. Be more subtle.”

Erik opened an eye to shoot him a look. “Subtle? With a telepath? Too much work.”

Charles pushed Logan’s shirt up so he had better access to his back and chest. “Go nap, Erik,” he yawned. “You’re tired. It makes me tired, too.”

”Just for a bit,” Erik mumbled.

Charles didn’t even notice he’d fallen asleep himself until a hand on his shoulder startled him awake. The leg Logan was still using as a cushion felt somewhat numb. Eyes blurry, Charles looked up to find out why he’d been woken from his lazy afternoon nap. The smell of chocolate and fruit was the first thing he noticed then, a moment before he saw the truffle Erik was holding out for him to try. All Charles had to do was open his mouth.

The chocolate broke with an audible crack when Charles bit into the truffle. The ganache was soft in texture and of the special kind of pleasant sour sweets had. However, the milk chocolate made the entire thing a little too sweet for Charles’ taste. He pulled a face.

”That bad?” Logan asked, stealing the second half of the truffle out of Erik’s hand as he sat up. He, too, pulled a face after trying. “Too sweet. Where are the…” He waved with his hand, seemingly by accident snatching Erik’s hand so he could lick the little bit of molten chocolate off his fingers. “Dark chocolate ones?”

Erik pulled his hand back. He looked a little displeased, but not surprised. “70 or 80%?” he asked, offering the plate with assorted prototypes to them.

Logan went straight for the darkest chocolate. “Hmmmm,” he rumbled. “So much better.”

Charles tried the slightly lighter dark chocolate first, a little wary of the bitter taste of high percentage cocoa content. It was much better, the chocolate bringing out the ganache out, complimenting it instead of distracting. His face lit up.

He and Logan tried the other dark chocolate truffles while Erik waited patiently for their verdict. “70 with the kiwi and banana, 80 for the mango ones,” Charles declared in the end, earning an approving nod from Logan. “The 80% cocoa content made the kiwi-banana ones too bitter, the mango ones are sweeter and go better with chocolate that’s more bitter.”

”Noted,” Erik smiled. He pointed at the pieces he’d cut off the chocolate bars. “Do you need a moment or do you wanna try mousse and syrup cores right away?”

Charles thought about that, the slight sting of dark chocolate still on his tongue. “A glass of water first would be better, I’d say.”

Erik nodded, leaving them with the plate of chocolates while he vanished into the kitchen again to fetch two glasses of water. Logan took the opportunity to snatch another one of the kiwi-banana truffles in very dark chocolate. At the look Charles shot him he grinned. “What? You didn’t like them anyway.”

”Unbelievable,” Charles huffed, shaking his head. “You’re unbelievable.”

After Erik had returned and they’d both gulped down some of the water, they tried the chocolate bars. Charles let out a surprised sound when he bit into the first piece and a thin rope of syrupy goodness still connected the halves. He let the chocolate melt in his mouth, chewing only a little to let the syrup, mousse and chocolate mix enough. “Oh god, wow, yes,” he almost moaned. “This is so good.”

Erik smirked. He looked entirely too pleased with himself. “Try the other two chocolate types as well. I made the syrup differently for each one.”

When Charles was done tasting all three kinds, he had to admit he didn’t know which one he liked best. “They’re all good,” he said. “In their own ways. I like the milk one best, but only because I like that chocolate best.”

Logan wasn’t much a help either. He’d tried one, but then refused to try the rest, claiming he disliked the texture, as Erik should very well know since he’d tried the filled bars on him before with similar results.

It didn’t displease Erik, though. On the contrary, he looked quite happy with Charles final verdict on the chocolate bars. “What I was hoping for,” he said by means of explanation. He stretched, joints popping. “I’ll have to discuss them with Alex still, but I guess they might be good to go into production.”

”Well done,” Logan commented, stealing the last of the 80% cocoa content truffles.

Charles got up so he could kiss Erik, properly on the mouth for the first time that day. “Glad it worked out so well.”


End file.
